Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1887-10-24
COMMUNICATION first page. J


had been closed and locked for ten days,
and these strangers had obtained NO key from
the ianitor? Even if strangers had been
in the hall for any honest purpose why should
they have vanished in such haste and shown
nothing but the heel of flight and guilt when
their honest neighbor from Corinth was
heard ascending the stairs? Where did the
cracker crumbs come from, and cigar ashes in
the hall where no smoking had been per-
mitted or practiced since 1876 by printed
regulations of the Order? A grocery dealer
of your town testiies that about dinner time
of this same day he sold crackers and cheese,
about enough for luncheon, TO a strange
man who, lest he should give the shop keeper
too long time TO remember his face, said he
was in such hurry he would not have them
put I'D but stuffed the crackers into one
pocket and the cheese into another that he
might hurry back to his look out by the
window of the hall where he ate them at his
leisure.
Does the evidence lend any clue to the
Identification of this mysterious stranger!
Up,n this point these citizens who have tes-
tilted speak as they tell you, without doubt.
One OF them testites that the man whom he
met and scrutinzed upon the street as he was
turning into this very bank, was Oliver Crom-
well one of the prisoners at the bar Others
of them identify positively the man whom
they saw fitting about the neighborhood, in
through the street doors leading to the bank,
was David L. Stain, the other prisoner. the
head and front of the conspiracy of murder.
Whose were the heels of the nimble thief
who vanished from the doorway of the Ma
sonic Hail? Why they were his who after
wards munched the crackers and cheese of
the provision dealer and that dealer picks
him out from the prisoners as this same Da-
vd L. Stain. Will anyone doubt that since
Cashier Baron was murdered, the strangers
who dared not put up at the hotels, who
bought lunches lest thep should be Identified
by register, who opened the doors of the
Masonic Hall without the need of a janitor
and by false keys which are themselves the
implement and evidence of the burglar and
who all day long held their post by the hall
window which watched the approaches to the
bank are the guilty murderers of Cashier
Baron? If any reasoning man will doubt
this then your own citizens tell you by posi-
tive Identification that the men who did these
things are the two prioners at your honor:
bar. II they were not here upon that day
why do they sit here silent under the stgms
OF this dreadful charge? If not here, but
about their own business, in another and re
mote State, why do they even permit theil
counsel to stand between them and the cleal
proof of their innocence? Their silence un
der such circumstances and uDdor such {
charge is itself in the nature Of a confession
that they at least were here in Dexter upor
that dav, But if here, what for? They haG
neither home, nor relative, nor business
here. They lived in Massachusetts. Crom
we'll was common laborer and Stain was
man whose only employment was the cultiva
ton of his own land and the renting of two
houses in Medfield. Mass. Neither of then
had business relations with Dexter or with any
part of the surrounding country. Why then
are they found in Dexter and why found to-
gether, and why found at the Dexter bank
and of other days, why found there on day
on which the bank did no business? Being
there together, it was for some common pur
pose. What purpose had they in common
The evidence shows that they had no com
mon business but one. and that one was rob
berry. These two men were linked together
by but single bond and that confederac,
for crime. The little business that they hsC
was local to Massachusetts, Their combin
ed confederacy of crime could be carried
out quite as well in Maine as in Massachn
sets Being then here in Dexter on TIT
day of Barron's murder they were here 70
no honest purpose. Being here togethe
| they were here in futherance of their onl
common purpose, the robbery of the Dex
ter bank.
| If this conclusion is clear enough from tn
evidence already reviewed, what shall we sa
of the criminals over confessions of gull
proved out of the lips of two independent wit
nesses? What does the evidence show to b.
the history of two men who stand thu
charged with the crime of robbery and mar
der2 Both of them are now of middle lif
and have character behind them, either 70
good or evil. Which is it? In unearthin
this crime the government has put its fin
ger upon nest of criminals whose deed
would rival the den of Pagan or the pages o
Newgate calendar, In the town of Medfelt
Mass. it seems that there has existed 70
years banded gang of criminals whose soil
business has been the breaking and entering
of houses, stores and depots, the blowing VI
of safes, and the robbery of Cit
zens. Members of this organized
gang have record of Grim,
and a record of convictions. Each one o,
them haa served one term or more in Jail o.
in State prison, and the head and front Of
them all is the murderer of Barron, who sit'
before you in the person of the prisoner Stain
His houses in Medfeld are the headquarters
of the gang. There these expeditions were
planned. From there the different members
set out on their respective depredations, ans
thther when the spoils were gathered they
were brought back to be divided. Stain fur
nished at once the brains and the backbone of
the crew. man of iron nerve, cold as ar
iceberg, cruel in his look, absolutely without
emotion, terrible in his power of will. he di.
rected. controlled and at once inspired and
terrorized the bad band of which he was the
leader. His life was a life of crimes. He
lived surrounded by all the implements and
indicia of crime. his house, the thieves head
quarters, was stuffed tUll of secret doors and
closets, receptscles for stolen goods. He had
place on Blackstone street in Boston where
skeleton keys were made and fitted for him
Great punches of these keys were kept Sc
GREETED about the stone walls near his DIV cling
and sometimes hidden under rocks in the
neighborhood. He kept about him, and from
time to time wore and shift
ed masks, false whiskers, the
DISCUSSES to which crime resorts. Cromwell
the other prisoner at the bar, was his chosen
confederate IN crime.
OF such men what could not be expected in
the way of robbery or of murder made nee.
essary by attempted robbery and the peril OF
detection? Ii is of such men that the two msin
witnesses for the government, John Harvey,
and the younger Stain testified. OF young
Stains testimony much might be said. He
is Young man without natural strength
either of character or of mind. likely and
easy tool in the hands of his father of whom